Archives for June 2008

There are lots of issues on the table for affiliates as we approach the 2008 United States Presidential election, and I got to thinking… which of the candidates would be best for affiliates.

While we face a variety of issues, including the economy, Iraq, climate change, and immigration, the area I will focus on in this instance is the wallets of affiliates and how the tax plans of John McCain and Barack Obama will impact them.

The Tax Policy Center, a non-partisan, joint venture of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, compiled a breakdown that illustrates how the average tax bill could change in 2009 if either John McCain’s or Barack Obama’s tax proposals are fully in place.

While most affiliates fall into income ranges where the tax proposals are fairly similar, the super affiliates (and those who aspire to that income range) will see markedly different changes in their tax bill under John McCain vs. Barack Obama.

A: I have been using .htaccess redirects for years. I know there are a number of programs out there to cloak affiliate links, but I haven’t used any, including the Jim Edwards’ Affiliate Link Cloaker.

It depends on what you are trying to accomplish. I use .htaccess as an efficient way to change out multiple links for a merchant at once, as well as to create short URLs for print material or text newsletters.

I don’t use .htaccess for the purpose of cloaking, but it does accomplish that objective, too.

Also, it’s free to set up the .htaccess redirects, while those programs cost various amounts.

Personally, I don’t see a need to pay for it when it’s pretty easy to set it up yourself.

JupiterResearch has published a study on affiliate marketing that indicates online marketers will spend $2.1 billion on affiliate marketing fees, with US online affiliate marketing spending reaching $3.3 billion in 2012.

I am not clear what that means… “affiliate marketing fees”? I presume that is the aggregate cost of running an affiliate program: affiliate network fees, affiliate commissions, etc.

According to the report, affiliate marketing remains a highly attractive endeavor because it is performance based, presenting low risk and requiring low initial investment. Over time, marketers tend to work with affiliates that drive the most traffic to their sites, resulting in a small number of affiliates driving the majority of traffic and sales.

Because affiliate marketing is so heavily intertwined with the search engine marketing industry, Google is the one wild card that might affect the overall growth of the industry. Google’s dominance over SEM forces affiliates to be sensitive to Google’s Quality Score, which prevents lower-quality affiliates from buying paid search.

The lead author of the US Online Affiliate Marketing Forecast, 2007-2012 report was Patti Freeman Evans, who will be speaking at the LinkShare Symposium next week.

We are now accepting speaker proposals for Affiliate Summit Social Media 2008, taking place October 5, 2008 in New York City.

This is going to be the first in a series of one day, niche Affiliate Summit events. In contrast to the big conferences with thousands of people, Affiliate Summit Social Media 2008 has a maximum capacity of 300 attendees and it will be just one day with a single track.

Q: I have been trying the affiliate thing for about six months now, and I am not seeing any kind of progress. And I have this fear that I am going to be stagnant and never really break out and make some more money to really support myself. Should I give up?

A: I hear this a lot, and the problem is that some people perpetuate affiliate marketing as being an easy route to riches.

The reality is that it is not. Affiliate marketing requires a lot of time with the learning curve and testing, as well as a financial investment for anybody hoping to see a grow their business quickly.

So, I guess it depends on your level of passion for it.

Are you doing something in this space that really matters to you, and you want to continue with it, or is it something where you are unsure about your future plans?

I think you really have to have it in your heart that you want to succeed as an affiliate.

Let me share a little story with you about following your passion.

My father often told me a story about how when he was younger, he wanted to go into advertising. He had a statistical background, but wanted to get into something more creative.

However the more interesting job paid poorly, and he went with the stable, boring job.

This decision haunted him for years… decades. He often wondered what if he had taken that job in advertising and done something where he had a passion.

Instead, he worked many of his years for the Federal government in a bland 9-5 day. He started counting down the days to retirement many years out, because he couldn’t stand the doldrums of his work.

And then, with about seven months to go before retirement, he passed away.

All of that time and regret that was supposed to result in a happy ending… well, it didn’t.

That had a great impact on me and pushed me to focus on doing work that was fun to me – essentially stuff that didn’t feel like work.

It can be scary and hard to go out on a limb and take that risk, but you’ve got to do it if you want to work on your terms.

As Bob Marley once sang, “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery.”

It’s not easy by any means, but if you find your place as an affiliate and you really enjoy what you are doing, it will be so fulfilling.

This all reminds me of the keynote address by Jim Bouton at Affiliate Summit 2006 East.

If you’re note familiar with Mr. Bouton, he’s a former New York Yankee, best-selling author, and the inventor of Big League Chew.

I stumbled on to the secret of success, and that is persistence.

I just kept going out for the team anyway, even though I wasn’t successful.

Every summer out there playing ball. Persistence… persistence was the key.

You don’t have to be educated, you don’t have to be talented, you don’t have to be rich, you don’t have to be lucky – it’s available to anyone.

I’m convinced most people don’t fail, they simply stop trying.

So ultimately, I would say you should not fear tomorrow, but rather embrace it and own it.

If you want to be an affiliate, then just make it happen.

Work a little harder, put a little more into it, and focus on something you care about, and it will happen for you.

Yanik Silver, who has created a number of successful online products, as well as the popular Underground Online Seminar, has a new article at Entrepreneur.com (5 Perfect ‘Spare-Time’ Online Businesses), and strongly disagree with his comment about affiliate marketing.

“This (affiliate marketing) may possibly be the absolute laziest way to make money because it doesn’t require you to have a product, make a sale or ever have any interaction with customers.”

Granted, affiliates don’t do the fulfillment, but being an affiliate is hardly a lazy pursuit.

The Performance Marketing Alliance is a new professional association for affiliate marketers that has just kicked off operations.

The group is currently being sponsored by Affiliate Classroom, and spearheaded by Rebecca Madigan of Affiliate Classroom, who was previously at Commission Junction, where she was director of product management and solutions marketing manager.

There are three industry veterans who have been instrumental in building momentum behind the group: Lisa Riolo, Brook Schaaf, and Brad Waller.

The team behind the Performance Marketing Alliance has laid out some plans for moving forward, such as organizing a paid staff, determining objectives, and creating an advisory board.